I can't help, but have enjoyed the photos! Love black tomatoes and you just reminded me that some of mine are Black Krim. I didn't label, either. hehe

No 1. is Principe Borghese, and you can get tomatoes with the pointed tail, though sometimes you get fruit without. This sort of minor variation has been common when I have grown PB for drying, but I do think I mostly get the ones with the little tail or nipple or whatever a person wishes to call it.

No. 2 is one I haven't grown so I cannot comment on it.

No. 3, Japanese Black Trifele. When I grew it, it was highly variable in shape and size, with larger, more pear-like shapes early on and somewhat smaller less pearlike shape (sort of more like a long, fat plum) later on. The variation in size and shape as shown in your photo is similar to what I remember. I haven't grown it in a few years.

No. 4, Black Prince. When the description says very uniform round shapes, it lies. Many of Black Prince's fruits are round, but others are more oval or egg-shaped. I've grown it many years and always had have this variation not only shape, but also in size, which can vary from about 2 to 6 or 7 oz.

No. 5: I don't take photos of tomatoes in general, so cannot help you by sending you photos because I don't have them. However, Striped German, when I grew it, was a gold and red bicolor and without much striping. By the time it matures, it is mostly gold with some streaky red on the blossom end.

Berkeley Tie Die has a lot of red and green striping, and where the red and green come together, it looks sort of like streaks of brown. Still, I consider it a red-green bicolor. You have to let it ripen to a very dark maroon with green stripes or it won't be ripe inside. There's probably photos of it on Brad Gates' Wild Boar Farms webpage.

Large Barred Boar has some similar coloration to Berkeley Tie Dye but it produces a larger sort of flattened beefsteak shaped tomato. I get very large ones early in the season and smaller ones as the season goes on.

Do you know how to look up the different tomato varieties at Tatiana's Tomatobase? She has one page for each tomato listed in her database (there are thousands) and there's usually photos (if any are available) at the bottom of each variety's page. Here's the Tatiana's Tomatobase page for Large Barred Boar:

Tatiana's Tomatobase: Large Barred Boar

No. 6. Ha ha ha ha ha. I don't even try to keep the black ones separate by name when I harvest them because they all look too much alike. If you want to be able to identify them as you bring them in, then you need a better labeling system. You might try tree tags attached to either each plant, each stake or each cage. Then, when you harvest, write the name of the variety on the tomato's stem end (which gets cut off and discarded anyhow) using a non-toxic marker. I use a Sharpie for this.

In my garden, Paul Robeson produces smaller tomatoes than the other two except for the first couple of fruits of the season which can be pretty big and they tend to almost look like brown tomatoes and not black ones.

The photos at Tatiana's capture the color variation pretty accurately:

Tatiana's Tomatobase: Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson is one of the worst tomatoes I've ever grown in the sense that it just doesn't like my soil or growing conditions and manages to die each year about the time it is producing its first ripe fruit. I tried it again this year for about the 10th time (determined to make it grow and do well here, which apparently is impossible) and it produced about a dozen or so ripening fruit as it was dying. I'm done with it. And, its flavor is not nearly as good as about 2 dozen other black types I grow, so hurray, I managed to get it to produce this year and discovered it wasn't worth all the effort I've put into it over the years.

Black Krim stands almost alone in its own class in terms of flavor. I feel like there is a lot of inaccurate BK seed floating around that is not true to type, so your seed source may determine what you get with it. There's tons of shape variation, with some fruit being more smooth and round and other being much more lobed. I feel like the strongly lobed ones are superior in flavor so suspect it may be that different strains exist, which is not uncommon with tomatoes that were passed around between seed savers for years before someone brought them into commercial cultivation and began selling the seeds. The smooth round ones never attain the size of the more lobed ones in my garden. The photos at Tatiana's Tomatobase capture the shape variation really well:

Black Krim @ Tatiana's Tomatobase

Your final photo of Black Beauty is gorgeous. I would have expected bigger fruit from it based on what I've read about it...and I would have been wrong.

Finally, I apologize for introducing you to Tatiana's Tomatobase. It never is a good idea to show a tomatoholic that there's thousands and thousands of tomato varieties out there that he or she hasn't grown yet. Please don't start making your list of the 1,000 tomato varieties you most want to grow next year after you start reading all the pages at Tatiana's Tomatobase.

And, one more thing. I buy most of my tomato seeds from someone else, not the source you seem to be using. I got too many tomatoes from them over the years that seemed to be not true to type or true to their description or both, and after quite a few years of that, I focused more on retailers whose tomatoes grow more true to type for me. YMMV.

Dawn

Alexis, love your tomatoes! What a happy problem to have.

Dawn, I'm sooo impressed with your immense knowledge in gardening. Thank you for always helping everyone! I always see you here and on FB.

That tomatobase is insane! It must have taken them a long time to catalog all the tomatoes. With so many photos too!

Eileen, I am a tomatoholic. You knew that already, right? I like helping people when I can.

The tomatobase is a true labor of love. I have no idea how long she has worked on it, but clearly compiling the data is a longtime project. She also grows tomatoes and sells seeds (an enormous variety but certainly not all the ones on her list) although the last I heard, she and her family were in the midst of moving to a new farm and will not resume seed sales until the fall after they get moved in, re-organized and settled in.

Alexis, I hope you are not on page 1,000 of Tatiana's Tomatobase and overdosing on all the varieties and photos. If you are, I apologize to your family for diverting your attention away from them.

On the other hand, for a woman in your condition who should not be laboring outside in the heat the next couple of months until your real labor is over, the database could give you endless hours of diversion indoors in the air conditioning. Hmmm. I hope you aren't going to name your next child after a tomato. You wouldn't do that....would you? I adore Wren's name but hope she's not about to end up with a sibling named Porter Improved, Church, Yellow Oxheart or Pink Berkeley Tie Dye (and, yep, it is not quite the same tomato as Berkeley Tie Dye). I hope this is making you giggle. We all need more laughter in our lives everyday.

Dawn

Well, I'm glad no one else got labels done this year either! Nancy, we are quite the pair! I tried, but after the second pot-up I started losing track. Then I just gave up altogether lol. I planted over 100. Gave my sister close to 60. And killed another 60 by not watering them once they all went outside (oops) so it's understandable my sub-par labeling system failed me. And my attention span. Hehe Bon, if you find a Black Krim out there snap a picture! I think I ate one today after looking at the database photos.

Dawn, you are definitely making me giggle! And thank you for all the clarity. Super helpful. Next year I think I'll go with tree tags. That sounds smarter than any idea I've had yet, and more difficult for Wren to reorganize lol

I promise I'm staying out of the heat some.. but I'll never be inside for too long. I just can't stand it. Im definitely taking it easy out there. Mostly just picking tomatoes in the am, and watching wren from my shady deck in the afternoons with my feet in the kiddy pool. I saw a video of a lady giving birth on her back deck which made Mike and I laugh a bit about the possibility of this happening to me! (probably more of a nervous laugh for him! Ha). With Wren I had a midwife, and planned a natural birth at a birth center instead of the hospital route so we watched WAY TO MANY birth videos. This time around I'm just planning a hospital birth since last time I ended up there anyway when my labor never started after my waters broke. Total waste of money.. We got to pay the midwives, and the hospital... lesson learned, you cant control anything when it comes to child birth lol

Anyway, im sure i wont be having the baby in the garden, but i guess if it happens ill have a wild story for you guys. Maybe a tomato middle name would be appropriate then! Ha I expect everyone to be coming up with their favorite name now.. just in case.

And I know all about "THE database". It's like a tomato-lovers drug warehouse.. And it is your fault I know about it, but you introduced me to it years ago without realizing it Lol I'm sure I'll be browsing the pages more the next few weeks for sure.

Dawn, what are your top 3 favorite tomato sources? As you see, I generally order from Baker Creek, or Johnnys, but have used others like whilhite, SSE, and a couple others I learned about from GW. I'd be interested to know your favs.

Oh,, I am so good at this game of name the baby! I'll put my energies into that one. Although, with you coming up with Wren, this will be quite the challenge! Wait! I forget-- did you have an MRI that shows the actual gender of this little person? If so, you gotta share that.

And after Amy's visit yesterday, I will NEVER fail to keep the names on my tomato plants.

Bon! I think of your as a seasoned gardener, because you have been so successful. expected better of you than not to label all your plants! ROTFL . :) . Love hearing from you when you show up!

Alexis, Oooh, I didn't know I mentioned it to you years ago. Alrighty then, now your raging tomato addiction makes sense and it might be all my fault. I'm not really sorry though. If I am tomato-addicted, other people should be as well. Actually, I can picture you in labor in the garden and Mike trying to get you out of the garden and into the vehicle and headed to the hospital while Wren is bringing you handfuls of flowers.....possibly flowers that you really didn't want for her to pick at the current time. lol. It is quite a scene, is it not? Helen Keller said (and I may be paraphrasing this but I think I've got it right) "Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing". I think that is true. What would be more of a daring adventure than giving birth to your child in the garden? NO, no, no...please don't do that.

For the most accurate tomato varieties that seem to grow true to type, my top three are VIctory Seeds (note how careful Mike is to relay appropriate history with each variety), Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Johnny's Selected Seeds. During the brief few years that Gleckler's Seedmen were back in business in the mid-2000s, I adored their seeds as they were incredibly true to type. It was a sideline business/career though, and the Gleckler Family descendents couldn't do it and their regular jobs as well, which was such a terrible shame, so they closed down the seed company again. When I want adventures and seeds that mostly grow true to type but which also might occasionally produce a wild surprise, I also like TomatoFest or Marianna's Heirloom Seeds. Oh, and Seed Savers Exchange seeds also are true to type, but some of the varieties they rave about just don't perform well here.

I do everything I can to keep my tomato varieties straight. When I sow the seeds in a flat, I label each cell with a name tag pushed as deeply into the cell as possible and I draw a map showing what each cell contains. When I pot up into plastic cups, I label the cup they are raised in with a duct tape label on the outside of it and a handwritten label pushed into the soil. Those labels are made from slats of old mini blinds and I use the Industrial Sharpies sold at Lowe's or HOme Depot because they don't fade. When I plant, I put the mini blind slat label deep in the soil near the base of the plant....so deeply that I often don't see it again until I pull up the plants to throw them on the compost pile. I add a new label to each stake or cage. I attach it with duct tape. I then make a map showing where each plant is planted, by name. STILL, despite all that, I occasionally end up with a plant whose labels have disappeared into thin air. Next year I'm going to do the tree tags. Sometimes I have odd things happen that would indicate I messed up something while potting up, which I do alone in a room from which cats and dogs have been banned so they won't create problems. Still, when I end up with an orange-fruited tomato that clearly is Orange Minsk in a location clearly labeled Black Krim, I just blame the cats. Wouldn't you?

Dawn

Pink Berkely Tie Dye

That's a beautiful tomato in my book. Had so many cracked like this. Started processing the black tomatoes today. Super YUM. Look out chili...

Y'all are such fun tomato growers. I'm so boring. Someday I'm going to be fun. Someday when chicken coops are built, kid's school functions/activities are less demanding, and just maybe I will work fewer hours...THEN, then I will be a fun tomato grower.

Pink Berkely Tie Dye is kind of famous among tomato aficionados. It's supposed to be one with excellent flavor. I'm not sure I actually have tasted one yet. I like Black Brown Boar and Pink Boar, but they all have ugly skin. Kind of thick and tough. This year, fruit worm and some critter have especially targeted my Pink Berkely (I never spell it right) Tie Dye. The picture above is not yet ripe.

I read some amazing articles today online regarding thoughts and the rewards of gardening (mostly in connection and joy and/or God or spirituality--there are many good ones). . . I may cull a few and post on FB. . . .

Gardening is spiritual. Truly. It's absolutely killing me not to spend much time in the garden (too hot). I need to visit the bugs, the lizards, the salamander, to make the garden comfy for the tree frogs, garden snakes (okay. only the nice ones) to dig my toes in the dirt again, to just get comfy and drink it all in while the dragon flies perch on the clothes line. Right now when I go out there, I'm rewarded with salty sweat in the eyes.

At least, this year I'm busy working the produce in the kitchen - a little each day - pondering how I would handle much more (Not very well, at this point. ha).

I love love love seeing my freezer fill up. That's my gd right there. Real wealth and abundance if I don't take it for granted.

I desperately wanted peas this year. I wanted a freezer full of peas. Mine just didn't do well. I tried. I'll try again. Mew local grocer sells ugly fruit. Bags and bags of sugar snap peas and flat podded stir-fry peas. Eight pounds for $6. Freezer is full.

Nancy, I find gardening to be deeply spiritual. Even if I didn't raise a single edible crop, gardening still would feed me because it feeds my soul. It always has, even when I was still a child and couldn't put it into words. There is nothing like being in the garden. A lot of people find God in a church building with other like-minded worshippers. I understand that. That's not where I find God. I find God outdoors in every blade of grass, every stick, every little living creature and certainly in every yummy tomato. I always feel closest to God when I'm in the garden---or just in the yard, or walking through the woods or hiking in the mountains. I have to have my daily dose of the outdoors or I am a cranky person and I believe it is because that's where my soul feels closest to God.

Bon, Congrats on the full freezer, and I am glad you are finding such happiness and contentment in your garden. Every year there will be some crop that just doesn't produce. Our wild and wacky, highly variable and insane weather pretty much guarantees that. That's why a gardener's favorite phrase is the oft-repeated "there's always next year". I love that you have a grocer who sells the slightly older produce that way as it is such a terrific deal for folks who like to preserve food. For me, preserving the food is just as important as growing it, though of course we also eat all we can fresh. When you're cooking and eating your own preserved food in winter, it is like having the garden there in the house with you, even if it is 20 degrees and snowing outdoors.

Dawn

I'm horrible at not labeling stuff (as noted by all my "ID please" posts). So at some point this spring I cut styrofoam cups into rings and slipped them around seedlings. So far, those are the only ones I can still identify. And now the plants are lrfe eniugh that the ring can't come off. So I may stick to this method of labeling.

Not a bad idea, except I hate styrofoam, LOL.

I just came in from the garden with a dozen tomatoes! Unfortunately, I have the same issue. Plenty of labels, but plenty of helpers who liked the labels with the pretty pictures. The labels are all MIA. Probably in my neighbor's yard, lol! I planted Black Kim and Cherokee Purple. But what I thought was CP doesn't look like the pictures. So maybe it's not CP. I guess I'll just eat them and try again next year.

Do you Cherokee Purples have the right color but the wrong shape? I believe that happens because are some seed wholesalers who are not keeping their seed pure. I had to shop around to find a retailer I thought was growing the real CP. If they are the right shape but the wrong color, then that can be caused by heat sometimes which can make their color look a bit off.

I saw this post before I left Friday and tonight read the last few posts. If I would've had time I would of said Friday that there are many strains of most of the popular varieties. I have grown at least 8 different strains/crosses of CP alone. One year I planted 6 next to each other for comparison purposes. I attribute the different ones to a variety of reasons. Accidental crosses, environmental influences and personal selection practices are a few of them. I received seeds from Craig and also a granddaughter of the person who was growing it and where Craig's original seeds came from(at least that is what I was told). One of my first sources was a reputable seed source that is highly recommended by many. They were an obvious cross. So unless a grower knows for sure what something is supposed to look and taste like they won't know if they are growing a true to variety plant. I grew some that looked right but tasted bad. Dawn knows that CP and KB are two of my favorites. But a person has to have the true strain of each or they will be disappointed.

In my area the environment has a major influence on size of fruit. I've never grown a variety that grew as big here as it does elsewhere. I relate it to cattle. When moving cattle from the north ( NE north) to our area you will lose at least one frame size and 150-250 lbs in weight. It has been proven many times. The same things happens with the size of many vegetables. This is why I don't pay a lot of attention to fruit size when deciding if a variety is true or not. Unless it is an cherry type or something way off.

Dawn I read your comments. I hesitate to say much as what does the best for me here in my conditions doesn't do as well at others. I grow a few every year that I know won't have the best flavor but they are dependable producers. Goliath is one of those. I only plant 1-2 of it, Big Beef and Jet Star but want to make sure I have at least a few for BLT's. And some that do well for you never seem to cut it here. I decided to use the last of my C-Tex seed this year. Haven't had a single fruit set yet. But have a few on the JD's Special Pink plant I have. Burrell's Special to this point is setting as well as any of the hybrids here and at Leedey. CP is setting some and I forgot to mark seed source on the cups so not sure what strains I'm growing. Cowlick's Brandywine is setting fruit better at this point than Brandyboy. And BB has always done well for me. The year makes so much difference that I don't lock my tomato crop to a few varieties. What does well one year will fail the next here.

Jay, You know that I am amazed that you can grow tomatoes at all in such harsh conditions and I hope you'll always speak up and tell us what does well for you because we all can learn from that.

The variation within Cherokee Purple seeds baffled me in the beginning and is part of the reason I take the time to try to search out seeds that grow true to type. Then I discovered it happens with many other varieties too. It can sort of drive you crazy after a while. I was really happy during the brief time frame within which...sometime in/around/about the last decade....that Gleckler's Seedmen was back in business for a few years. Their seeds were true to type and I really appreciated that, and I hated it that the family couldn't keep it going after reviving it.

Spider mites showed up in my garden in April so I expected a rough year here. It didn't happen. Something (and it hasn't been me!) has controlled them and kept their numbers pretty small. It baffles me when stuff like that happens but I'm not complaining. This will be the year remembered for the fact that all the usual pests showed up, I pretty much ignored them, and the garden did fine anyway. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is what it is. At the risk of inviting disaster into my garden, the grasshoppers haven't been bad at all yet, which is another delightful surprise. Now, since I said that, I'm sure they'll sure up tomorrow in huge numbers.

I planted some odd varieties just for fun this year, including World's Famous Brimmer, and it produced fabulously early in the season and produced the largest tomatoes in the garden this year---the biggest one was 1 lb. 11 oz. I don't grow for size and don't bother weighing tomatoes, but that one was so big that I had to weigh it just to see how big it was. Ferris Wheel also did very well. In fact, so did Brandywine Sudduth. The best tomatoes in the garden this year in terms of productivity were the big pinks and purples, and we had so many of them that a lot of them just ended up in the preservation pile for freezing or canning. Lemon Boy still is producing a lot and so is Zogola. We gorged on tomatoes earlier in the season but have slowed down now. I love tomatoes and eat a lot of them but this year I have about had my fill. It's been a really great garden year so far, and I'm hoping to coast through the next 4-6 weeks in a very lazy, staying indoors and staying cool sort of way as much as possible.

I don't think it is the heat so much this year as it is the combination of heat and humidity.

Dawn

Dawn the humidity has been higher here this year and even the two previous years compared to normal. But many times I will see a 20-30% difference between here and Leedey. I still haven't got used to the humidity or the chiggers and ticks.

I have seen a distinct shape difference sometimes in fruit on the same plant. Especially when they are ripening at different times. Again I attribute that to the enironmenatal influence. Many times the fruit that matures during the hot, dry, windy summer period will be a different shape that I feel results from stress. The early fruits and the late fruits many times will look the same and be more comparable to the original. So when trying to determine if something is true to variety I look at many factors. And if I like a tomato and it is stable I will grow it although it might not be 100% true.

The next 4 days are going to be real hot and then followed by 3 days in the upper 80's and low 90's. There is some indication we will see some moderation in temps and low 90's will be the highest we see next week. If so I'm hoping for some good fruit set during that time period.

I'm going to have to get some grasshopper treatment. I have put it off but can't any longer. Hate too but there are getting to be too many. See some spider cob webs but haven't found any mites ect. So hopefully the beneficials are keeping things in control. To this point besides those wiped out by hail I've pulled two plants. That is a low number so guess I'd better knock on wood.

#2 looks like Brin De Muguet (Lilly of the Valley), an heirloom variety from France.